Is Imran one of the 10 best bowlers ever?

There's been a lot of great bowlers in the history of cricket. And if I were to make a top 10 list the names like Lillee, Marshall, Warne, Hadlee, Murali, McGrath and Akram would all be mortal locks on my list. Then there are plenty of candidates for top ten...

Waqar Yunis - Best strike-rate of modern gameAllan Donald - High percentage of top order batsman dismissed that I know of. Majorly underratedSF Barnes - It's called "Weight of numbers"

And there's a lot more like Trueman and a rash of West Indian bowlers. But I was looking at the best test bowling performances ever and Imran's 1982 bowling year is just insane!

9 matches

only 824 runs taken off him

62 wickets!

And an average of 13.29

I don't know what his strike rate was, but if it's below 40 then that's crazy.

My question is, is Imran Khan one of the ten best bowlers in history? His overall career figures might not say so... but it's safe to say he's an impact player.

I was co incidentally just checking out Cricinfo's inaugral issue yesterday night. There have been a lot of great bowlers from various eras. So it would be tough for an Imran even to make it despite him being superb.

He did not bowl a single ball in test cricket between 83-85. In other words he did not bowl between Age 29-32. Certainly its the peak period for majority of the fast bowlers and looking at his record in 82 i am sure Imraan would have been no exception.

That was a tremendous six, the ball was still in the air as it went over the boundary.
That's what cricket is all about. Two batsmen pitting their wits against one another.
Anyone foolish enough to predict the outcome of this match is a fool.
Unless something happens that we can't predict, I don't think a lot will happen.

Ian Blackwell: It's just understanding foods and what to eat at certain times.

So would you rank Hadlee right up there given his success and the lack of proper support he had (what he had wasn't that special) much like the success of Murali in similar circumstances (in the spin bowling department you can take out Vaas since he is a pacer and the there are periods that have bordered between brilliant and inconsistent)?

If I'm not mistaken Imran had to carry the bowling attack during much of his career (not taking in account the spinners) and certaintly having to led from the front with the bat.

One thing that sticks into my mind was those ball tampering allegations, I don't know true they are (I don't have time ATM to go up and check) for for sullied his reputation a bit as IMO a bowler of his class didn't have to resort to such a thing (same applies to Wasim and Waqar).

Beware the lollipop of mediocrity. Lick once and you suck forever...

RIP Fardin Qayyumi, a true legend of CW

Originally Posted by Boobidy

Bradman never had to face quicks like Sharma and Irfan Pathan. He wouldn't of lasted a ball against those 2, not to mention a spinner like Sehwag.

In the end, I think it's so utterly, incomprehensibly boring. There is so much context behind each innings of cricket that dissecting statistics into these small samples is just worthless. No-one has ever been faced with the same situation in which they come out to bat as someone else. Ever.

I would say Imran would probably be in the top-ten because he often had to captain the side and along with Abdul Qadir was often the only real attacking options he had, i remember that he often had one or two medium-pacers but nothing much until Wasim came along in the late 80's.

But on sheer bowling he would be probably be squeezed either towards the bottom or out of the top 10 by the west indian quicks.